The rain hit the pavement in rhythmic bursts, a soft melody against the chaos inside Elena's head. She sat at her desk, fingers brushing against the old wooden surface of her childhood bedroom. The walls, once decorated with posters of her favorite bands, now felt distant. Everything in this house felt distant. It had been years since she left, but the memories still lingered like the scent of an old perfume, familiar but suffocating.
Her phone buzzed on the table, a message from her best friend: "Are you coming tonight? Everyone's meeting up. It's been too long!" She stared at the screen, her thumb hovering over the reply button. It was tempting. But what was the point?
"Does it even matter anymore?" she whispered to the empty room. A year had passed since she'd last seen him—Aiden. Her first love, her first heartbreak. A year since they'd parted ways in a way that neither of them could fully understand. She hadn't been able to fix things with him then. How could she? She'd been too young, too selfish.
Her eyes traveled across the room, landing on a photo frame on her dresser. Aiden's face, smiling back at her in the bright sunlight of their senior prom. They had been happy once. They had been everything to each other.
A sudden pain shot through her chest. The same feeling she'd been living with for the past year. The same feeling that had pushed her to leave everything behind and return home. To face the past she had tried so desperately to outrun.
You should've fought for him, Elena. The thought echoed in her mind, sharp and unforgiving.
She closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath. She could still hear his voice in her mind, still feel the warmth of his hand in hers. You'll regret it, Elena. I'm not going to wait forever.
But she had let him go. And now… now it was too late.
Elena picked up the frame and traced the edge of the glass with her finger. The memory was so vivid, so real, as though it had happened just yesterday. How was it that something so beautiful could fade so quickly?
She stood, walking to the window and looking out at the rain-drenched streets. The world was still spinning, moving on as it always did. But for Elena, time had stopped. She felt trapped in a moment she couldn't escape.
The buzz of her phone interrupted her thoughts. She glanced at it, expecting another reminder of how much time had passed since she'd seen her friends, when something strange happened.
The screen flickered.
Elena blinked, and then the screen went black for a moment, before lighting up again with a message that wasn't there before. It was from an unknown number.
"You're not where you're supposed to be."
She frowned, staring at the words, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Was it a prank? Maybe someone she used to know?
She tapped on the message to respond, but before she could type, a wave of dizziness crashed over her. Her vision blurred, the room spinning in a dizzying swirl of colors and sounds.
Her head throbbed painfully, and she reached for the edge of the window to steady herself.
And then everything went black.
To be continued.